You might find me on the other side ... that's likeitis
You might find me on the other side ... that's likeitis
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PORNO, Irvine Welsh's highly entertaining sequel to the cult classic, Trainspotting, reunites the gang as they pursue another get-rich-quick scheme. Before reading Porno though, it would probably help to have read TRAINSPOTTING and/or GLUE. Porno is a direct sequel to Trainspotting, bringing back virtually all the characters from some ten years earlier, and adding some of the characters from Glue into the mix, most notably "Juice" Terry Lawson and Rab Birrell. Porno will lack a great deal of depth, resonance and familiarity for readers not acquainted with the characters and settings from those earlier books.
• The Plot •
It's been 10 years since Mark Renton walked away with the cash from a drug deal involving himself and his mates, Simon "Sick Boy" Williamson, Danny "Spud" Murphy, and Francis Begbie. In this book, the gang return - criminally irresponsible as ever and still focusing
on illicit drugs and seedy sex.
This is a carefully plotted and constructed story, told in alternating, first-person narrative chapters by: Sick Boy, who has re-invented himself as an entrepreneur; his new girlfriend, the beautiful and egocentric Nikki Fuller-Smith, a student and aspiring star; the self-destructive but well-meaning junkie, Spud; the psychotic Begbie, who's fresh out of prison and obsessed with taking revenge on Renton, and anybody else who thinks themselves a wideo; and Renton who, after ripping off his mates, made a new life for himself running dance clubs in Amsterdam.
Everyone's clean now....well, they're off heroin at least, but now it's cocaine which is the substance of abuse, that and bucketloads of alcohol.
The central character is Simon "Sick Boy" Williamson, older, wiser and wider - at least HE thinks he is - failed in every career path he has chosen, whether honest or not. He takes control of his aunt's pub in Leith which becomes the base for his new enterprise, making a porn film. He enlists student Nikki Fuller-Smith to be his starlet, and Juice Terry as his main man. Meanwhile, on a trip to Amsterdam, he runs into Renton, a successful club owner, and persuades him to help him in a scam to finance his new production company. Renton is reluctant to come back to Edinburgh because of Begbie, but Sick Boy is eager for Begbie to administer some rough justice to Renton, after all, he ripped him off as well.
They begin filming and marketing their first movie, making it all the way to the top of the industry before the inevitable crash. Meanwhile, homicidal Begbie and pathetic Spud lie lurking in the background.
Because of the book's multiple points of view, it's soon clear that everyone's involved in their own personal scam or vendetta, ensuring conflicts and confrontations are never very far away. Their collaboration on this business venture, turns remarkably, but inevitably, sour in an unexpected ending that definitely leaves the door open for yet another follow-up sequel.
• Not The Plot •
Porno is an entertaining and quite a deep read, sometimes funny, often disturbing. There's an interesting new cast of characters complimenting the old faces, and with several narratives running throughout the book, it gives each character's own, unique point of view.
The original work, Trainspotting, was cutting edge but Porno gives the central characters greater dimension this time round, which also allows Welsh to make fools of a few of them. I don't think it matches Trainspotting but it's rare for any sequel to do that anyway.
Irvine Welsh's brutal, but honest prose and a rogue's gallery of some likeable rascals - and some frightening nutcases - are in full display here, but the novel value of Trainspotting isn't. There's very little more insight, or enough development of the characters, and it doesn't have the same invention or drive. But, these ARE great characters, and the interactions between them, as well as the glimpses of the less pleasant aspects of life, along with Welsh's passion for using local dialect, ensure that Porno is somewhat more than a tired old re-working.
Ultimately, I would class this book as more of a comedy, lacking the darkness of Trainspotting or the storytelling of Glue.
If you're a fan of Welsh or, if you have no aversions to reading about degrading and disgusting situations, and narratives liberally littered with expletives don't faze you, you'll love this book.....if'n ye kin make oot whit a' they gadgies is spraffin' aboot likesay, ken?
I'm dedicating this review to JillMurphy who's always lamenting the 'paucity' of book reviews, and who says she's going to review a beer soon.....look at me, I'm shaking with worry!
Thanks for reading
Šproxam2004
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I grew up around Edinburgh and Leith and Trainspotting was grteat as I knew every character in the book, as it was such an accurate depection of Leith at a certain Time. Porno on the other hand I found to ber a bit disapointing as it seems that Irvine is just playing to the crowd, also unlike it's predicessor it bears little resemblance to the Leith and Edinburgh of today. I felt that Irvine came across as an ex-pat trying to relive old glories in this book, also he does not tip barstaff, the ugly wee fat junkie that he is....
torr 09.03.2006 20:34
I didn't know Jill had threatened to write a beer review. Maybe that's why she's been so little seen around the site lately.
Porno is a sequel to Trainspotting, and builds on the success of that caustic and very ... more
funny novel by taking some of the characters through some radical new catastrophes. Sick Boy returns to Edinburgh with his ventures as a pimp and hustler in London h...
Postage & Packaging: £2.75 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
Pornois a sequel toTrainspotting, and builds on the success of that caustic and very funny ... more
novel by taking some of the characters through some radical new catastrophes. Sick Boy returns to Edinburgh with his ventures as a pimp and hustler in London hav...
Postage & Packaging: £2.75 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
Porno is a sequel to Trainspotting, and builds on the success of that caustic and very ... more
funny novel by taking some of the characters through some radical new catastrophes. Sick Boy returns to Edinburgh with his ventures as a pimp and hustler in London h...
Postage & Packaging: £2.75 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
Advantages: Great insight to what these characters we love to hate have been doing Disadvantages: you'll be up all night not being able to put this down
deenie80 12.08.2008 (12.08.2008)
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Review of Porno - Irvine Welsh
Advantages: Great insight to what these characters we love to hate have been doing Disadvantages: you'll be up all night not being able to put this down
deenie80 12.08.2008 (12.08.2008)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful
Review of Porno - Irvine Welsh
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